"Can I have a pet, daddy?"
"No."
"Whyyyyy?"
Red sighed as he sipped his morning coffee. "Ilk, we live on a ship travelling through space and barely land. It's not place for a dirty, smelly beast to run around." Besides, he hated animals.
"It doesn't have to be a big one! It can be a small one, like a bird!"
"Come on, Red, don't be like that!" Purple pouted.
"Did you forget the last time we had a beast in here?"
Zim had the brilliant idea to send a tiger as a present to his leaders, but didn't take into account that the big cats were not like the tiny felines the hyoomans had as pets, something which the crew on the Massive had to learn the bad way.
"SOMEBODY KILL THAT ANIMAL!" Purple yelled in fright. He and Red had climbed onto a wall with their PAK legs.
"Curse you, Zim!" Red yelled, even lifting his arm with a clenched fist.
The tiger roared and lunged at a random crewmember. "AAAAHHHH!"
Purple threw up at the sight of the carnage.
"Who did he eat?" Red asked.
"A service drone, My Tallest!"
"Someone send his widow a doughnut!"
"It wasn't that bad, at least we pretty cool sleeping robes." Purple pointed out, pointing at his orange striped pajama when he went to get some more coffee.
"Besides, companion beasts require too much responsibility," Red continued. "I don't think you're ready for one, Ilk."
"Not fair! I'm already four!"
Red made sure Purple wasn't around before whispering. "By the way, the next time you look for an accomplice you should ask Larb or Tenn. Purple is a bit too lacking when it comes to appealing."
"I heard that!" Purple called from the kitchen.
A few days later, though, Ilk's wish came true in a way.
In an attempt to earn the Tallest's favour, Zim sent her a tiny, gold-colored fish in a small, round fish bowl filled with a substitute of water that wouldn't burn her. The Tallest, of course, confiscated the fish until they made sure it wouldn't snap, explode, bite or turn into a gargantuan monster.
Afterwards, Ilk would spend hours staring at the puny fish, fascinated. It wasn't really that hard to keep it alive; all she had to do was change its water and feed it. It couldn't be taken out of the water or be petted, but she didn't mind.
The other Irkens, however, wondered what why such animals were kept as pets in the first place if they did nothing but eat and swim.
Eat. Swim. Swim. Eat. Evacuate. Eat.
To Ilk, however, the little fish was the 'greatest pet in the whole universe'.
"Well, at least it doesn't smell like Skoodge's socks." Purple muttered a some time later as he stared at the fish, named Finny.
"You know, it's the first time Zim actually sends an actually harmless animal." Red pointed out.
"Speaking of which, look at this!" Purple gently hit the glass of the fishbowl with a claw, but apparently it was enough to drive the fish nuts for a few seconds.
Red grew curious. "What just happened?"
"I don't know, but it's funny!"
"Let me try." He hit the fishbowl lightly, and again Finny swam to the opposite direction. "Hey, it is funny! Just don't let Ilk see you."
Unfortunately, it became an habit for Purple to startle Finny whenever Ilk wasn't around. What could he say? He loved tormenting smaller creatures; Skoodge and Bob are primary witnesses and victims of it.
On one occasion that Ilk stayed with Tenn for some extra hours, she left Finny back on the bridge right on top of Bob. Purple took delight in annoying the goldfish to no end, which in turn annoyed Red. He might not like animals, but it was his daughter's pet they were talking about.
"Will you give the finny-beast a break?" he asked as he ate a bag of popcorn.
"Not my fault it's so puny!" Purple simply said, startling the fish again and bursting into laughter when it swam to the opposite side of the tiny fishbowl.
"If Ilk sees you tormenting her pet, you can kiss your title of favorite uncle goodbye'.
"I'm her only uncle, you said so yourself. Besides, I'm not really hurting it; I mean, what's the worse it could happen?"
The next hit was a bit too rough, and they hadn't noticed that with all the hits the fishbowl had been pushed to the edge of the table little by little; the next one was the last straw.
The fishbowl fell off the table and shattered, spilling its watery content at Bob's feet. The only reason his feet didn't burn upon contact was that Ilk now used uncontaminated water from their own supply.
Finny, however, was flailing and splashing around.
"You were saying?" Red asked with a raised eyebrow.
Purple yelped in panic and tried to grab Finny, but it slipped from his grasp and went flying into the floor. "Somebody catch it!"
It seemed they had underestimated Finny, however. No matter how many hands caught it, it always slipped away from the crewmen's hands, and ended up causing a big number of Irkens falling on top of each other.
Finally, Larb grabbed one of the Tallest's soda vases and ran to the spot Finny would land on next. The goldfish landed into the soda with a tiny splash.
Purple laughed. "Good job, Larb!"
Usually whoever dared to ruin any of the Tallest's snacks or drinks was thrown out of the airlock ASAP, but given Larb's smart action and height, they didn't really mind this time.
"Is it okay?" Red asked. It wasn't out of concern for the fish's welfare, but rather because of how Ilk would react if something were to happen to it.
"I think the whole ordeal got him exhausted, My Tallest," Larb stated. "Looks like he's sleeping."
Finny was floating on the surface with his belly exposed, unmoving.
"I didn't know fish slept." Purple pointed out.
Red stared at Finny with a serious expression. "As a matter of fact, I don't even recall ever seeing him sleep like that."
….
"Finny?" Purple poked the fish tentatively, but there was no reaction. "Finny?"
Oh, no…
"Finny!" Purple's voice turned desperate as he snatched the vase from Larb and shook it in attempt to wake the fish up to no avail. "Come on, Finny! It's not funny, wake up!"
"Bravo," Red clapped his hands in a sarcastic manner. "Now you've really done it, Pur. You killed Finny."
Purple gulped. "C-Come on, surely he's playing a prank on us!"
"I highly doubt earth-fish are even smart enough to pull a prank on anybody."
Bob read out loud from the Irkpad. "While goldfish usually can live up to fifteen years, they must only be kept in freshwater, for saltwater or with high levels of gas, sugars and any other pollutants might shorten its lifespan considerably."
"There you have it."
"Oh, sweet Irk… What are we going to tell Ilk?!"
Red crossed his arms, raising an eyebrow. "We?"
"Hey, you can't leave me alone with this!"
"I told you to stop bothering the fish, but nooo, you simply had to keep tormenting it."
"Well, if you're so smart, what should we do about it?!"
"There! You used we again!"
"Um, My Tallest, I wouldn't like to be a defective of ill omen, but…" the navigator showed one of the camera feeds on the monitor, revealing Ilk and Tenn were on their way back to the bridge, probably to fetch the fish.
Purple panicked again and unconsciously gripped the 'body', forgetting momentarily that Finny's body was still wet until it slipped from his grasp and went flying towards one of the control panels, culminating when the electricity finished the job.
Purple and Red stared at the scene, agape; seconds later, the latter commented. "You know, you should write a book: a hundred ways to kill your niece's fish."
"My Tallest, she's seconds away…!" the same navigator from before cried out.
Purple and Red quickly searched in their pockets for anything they could use to replace Finny while they figured out what to do; they had an orange candy wrapper, a marble and a black market.
Thinking quickly, Red wrapped the marble in the candy wrapper and painted a line and two dots on it, then dropped into a glass of water just as Ilk and Tenn crossed the doorway.
"Hi, Finny!" of course she greeted the 'fish' first, though she noticed it wasn't in its fishbowl anymore. "Why is he in a glass?"
"Err, you see… Bob clumsily tripped and dropped it," Purple explained, pinning the blame on the service drone. "Thankfully Larb managed to put it in a glass of water."
"Y-Yeah…!" Larb joined in with a nervous grin. "It wasn't that easy, since he was very slippery, but I managed to catch it!"
Tenn sniffed the air. "Is it just me, or does it smell like someone roasted something?"
"Oh, I'm pretty sure it's just you!" Red chuckled nervously while subtly motioning to the navigators to get rid of the 'evidence'. Finny's charred remains were quickly taken and thrown into a garbage shut before Ilk noticed.
"No, I'm pretty certain it smells like-"
Larb was faster to react and threw a toilet plunger to her mouth, sending her backwards.
Invader Larb, the Tallest's favorite Invader-2.
The rest of the less-favoured Invaders-0.
Alright, they didn't have much time before Ilk realized the Finny in the water glass was an impostor, so they better hurry up in finding a permanent replacement.
The logical thing would have been to ask Zim to send another, but the person who suggested it was thrown out of the airlock. If they did that, he would think they actually liked the present and held him on a pedestal.
Besides, they weren't that desperate. Yet.
Unfortunately Callnowia didn't sell animals, and even if they did that fish was very hard to find in this part of the Universe since humans had never left their solar system. Ironic, especially since the 'goldfish' was a very common pet in its homeworld.
Again, they would NOT call Zim.
Their only option was to go look in the black market; they always got this type of hard-to-find, exotic stuff and sold it illegally.
Larb, Stink and Tenn were sent to Marketiuus and told not to come back without the fish. The Tallest didn't care how expensive it was, only that it looked exactly like Finny.
And so the three Invaders entered an exotic pet shop filled with caged fauna from various planets across the galaxy. The owner, an old snail-like alien, sneezed from the fur.
"Good evening, good sirs.. And lady," he greeted the Irkens, blowing his nose on a napking. "How can I help you?"
"See, we're kind in an emergency," Stink explained. "We need a very rare fish."
"How rare?"
Tenn searched through her irkpad and showed the shopkeeper a picture of Finny's species. The shop owner stared intently at it. "Aaah, I see. Indeed, it's a very rare type to find around here, since it's native from a planet with rather… primitive natives."
"Yeah, tell me," Tenn muttered.
"You're lucky, I think I do have one left in stock," the snail went to the back shop and returned seconds later with a an apparent clone of Finny in a fishbowl.
"Hey, he looks just like Finny!" Stink examined the fish in fascination.
"We'll take it!"
"Good. It'll be five hundred thousand monies."
"FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND?!" the three Invaders repeated.
The shopkeeper blinked. "Well, yeah. Like I said this fish is very hard to obtain; I doubt you'll find another one in all of Marketiuus."
"Would you give us a discount if we leave this one?" Larb asked, holding up Finny's remains for the shopkeeper to see it.
"Sorry, can't do that. My boss gives me the prices and I must apply them."
"Remember, guys, the Tallest said they didn't mind the price," Tenn whispered hurriedly to their companions. "Besides, it's this or calling Zim."
After a few seconds of pondering, they faced the shopkeeper. "We'll take it."
"Okay, Purple, this little blunder of yours cost us five bloody hundred thousand monies, so stay away from Finny II."
"I already said I was sorry!"
When they were sure Ilk was gone to the cafeteria, they snuck into her bedroom, carefully carrying the new in its fishbowl. Alright, Red was the one carrying it, he didn't trust Purple to do so without doing something stupid such as dropping it.
"How long do we have until she comes back?" Purple asked.
"Chill out, I told everybody to slow her down as much as possible," Red assured him. "Besides, it's no big deal. All we have to do is place this fishbowl, remove the fake fish and that's that, we can go back to snacking."
"I hope so, I haven't had anything to eat in half an hour and I'm hungry!"
Ilk had moved 'Finny' to an old porcelain vase while Tenn, Larb and Stink went to buy another fishbowl (that was the excuse for them to go to Marketiuus). She placed it in her bathroom, since she loved to play with Finny in her bathtub.
Red placed the fishbowl right next to the sink and wiped the sweat off his forehead. "Well, that was easy." He took the vase and sent its contents down the toilet to get rid of the evidence. "Alright, now we can go back to snacking," he glared at Purple. "And whatever you do, don't bother the fish, for Irk's sake."
Red was the first to leave the bathroom. Purple, on the other hand, stared intently at Finny II, his hand twitching. The temptation was too big and he gave one tiny touch to the fishbowl before scurrying away.
An hour later Ilk walked into the bridge, rubbing her glossy eyes.
"Ilk? What's wrong, sweetie?" Red asked her in concern.
"Finny died."
Purple nearly choked on his fifteenth doughnut. Red kept his composure, but he did look surprised. "He… died?"
"I was watching him swim and out of sudden he stopped moving, he floated to the surface… and he never moved again."
Red didn't know what to say. He only held Ilk as she cried.
One of the scientists performed an autopsy on Finny's body. It was hard since its anatomy was completely foreign, but he managed to deduce the fish had died from old age. Apparently the specimen they had been sold was around the end of its natural lifespan.
Purple gave his co-Tallest a look that read: Just for the record, this time around it wasn't MY fault.
Finny was given a proper send-off through the toilet… wow. Hyoomans and their grotesque funerary rites.
Afterwards Ilk was sad for a week before returning to her usual self, though she'd stare sadly at Finny's fishbowl every now and then.
"Well, on the bright side I don't think she'll want another pet anytime soon." Purple commented a few days later.
"You talk much considering the whole issue was your fault." Red said matter-of-factory.
"Come on, it was only a fish!"
"Tell that to Ilk."
"Anyway, I'm going to get more doughnuts."
Just then, the transmissor started beeping. "My Tallest, incoming transmission from Earth."
Red sighed. "Just patch him through already." What was the point in getting mad about it? It wouldn't change anything.
Zim's annoying little face appeared on screen. "Greetings, My Tallest!" he exclaimed with a salute.
"What now, Zim?" Red asked.
"First of all I wanted to offer Ilk some… condolences over the loss of her pet."
"How do you know that?" He didn't really need to ask. Ilk communicated with him on an almost daily basis, no matter how many times he told her not to.
Purple, meanwhile, for some reason couldn't get to open the door. "What on Irk…?" he pressed the button numerous times.
"Oh, I know everything, My Tallest!" Zim said cheerfully.
Aha. "Look, what do you want?"
"Well, I figured I could make her feel better if I sent her a little surprise!"
Now that made him react. "What did you send now?" Red asked. Please not another giant cat!
"During one of my infiltrations we were brought to a sort of zoo consisting solely of aquatic creatures. I am confident she will be delighted to see them!" There was a crash on the other end of the line. "GIR, what are you doing?! I told you to send one at a time!" with that Zim was off and the transmission was cut.
Oh, no… No, no, no! Control Brains, please don't let it be what he was thinking!
"Finally!" Purple cried out when he managed to open the door.
He quickly regretted it when a big current of Irk water rushed in and flooded the entire bridge. But that wasn't the worst part: along with the water came many aquatic earth fauna, mostly colorful fish, sea turtles, cephalopods and many others.
The only thing that kept the Irkens from drowning was the air bubble helmets their PAKs had.
The navigators and technicians found themselves struggling to get away from the overly colored fish, Larb fought to get free from an octopus's grasp and Bob was attacked by an electric eel. Purple was yelling in fright as he swam away from a large carnivorous fish with rows of sharp teeth.
Ilk swam by wearing a snorkel, riding on top of a sea turtle. "Look, daddy! I'm the little mermaid!"
Red's eye twitched, especially when a sort of echinoderm shaped like a five-pointed star wrapped its limbs around his air bubble.
"ZZZIIIIIIIMMMM!"
Speaking of the little mermaid XDXD.
